


Descent Into Madness

by CodaAtTheEnd



Series: On The Origin of Egos [2]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Self-Mutilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-26 09:49:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20387752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CodaAtTheEnd/pseuds/CodaAtTheEnd
Summary: There once was a man who could write things into reality. He tore out his eyes to see.





	Descent Into Madness

**Author's Note:**

> If you do not know who this is, get out. Go watch "Danger In Fiction" by Cyndago.  
GORE WARNING right after the line "HE DIDN'T WANT TO SEE." and ending after "...hit the floor as well."

Deep in the wilderness, there was a large house, more of a manor really, that housed a large family. In the woods nearby, another person lived in a small cabin. He was not part of their family, but that was his own choice. The family was comprised of an amalgamation, a lunatic, a set of twins, a squirrel king, and the new addition of a doctor. The man stayed in his cabin apart from all the rest. He wasn't like them. He was too... twisted for them. Too sadistic. 

The man sat alone, pondering the nature of family. The group had an insane murderer and a _literal_ corpse, but an author was too sadistic. Honestly, it wasn't like he _actively_ went and tortured people, he just needed to look at the effects of electrocution and _atropa belladonna_ and bullet ants and garrote wires and... Yeah, maybe they had a point. Maybe they were right to run when he approached and flinch when he smiled and scream when he reached for his pen. 

Thinking of, it had been a few months since he had visited. The whole point of coming to this place was to observe the immortal lunatic and the soul amalgamation, and besides, he hadn't seen the new addition. The _doctor_. He could do a lot with someone trained in taking apart the human body. Worth taking a look. He wasn't doing anything important. Maybe he could even work on his special project. He needed to be at the Manor for that one, and Dark would get suspicious if he didn't have a moderately reasonable excuse.

* * *

He walked up to the door and knocked once, loudly. Only fair to give them _some_ warning. Then he wrote the door unlocked and marched inside, dragging his bat behind him. It was too warm to wait any longer, and he was so _bored_. He gripped his bat tighter and smirked. It wasn't like he was _going_ to hurt them, it was just a little insurance. And even if he _did_ hurt them, they'd be fine. He could just write them better. Sure, they might remember, but he'd made a bad impression on them anyways. What's the harm in adding another bad memory? It wasn't like he couldn't make them all forget if he really tried.

No one was in the entrance hall, but he could see into the common room. Warfstache was lounging on the _offensively_ pink couch tossing knives into the air, the Jims were hanging from the ceiling for some reason, and the doctor was sitting on an armchair and reading a thick book. Judging from the size of the book, he could crush someone's skull with that. That would make a nice story. The doctor, once a saver of lives, now a taker. His knowledge of human anatomy would definitely make the book more interesting.

As he walked past the shattered mirror that no one else seemed to notice, he paused for a moment to stare at the poor soul trapped within its depths. What a story that would make! And the things he could see in that mirror... A broken corpse draped in red robes that smiled. An echoing place where death... wasn't. Where time and space and life and death didn't mean the same things. It was beautiful, so magnificent, so _lovely_. He _wanted_ it. But he couldn't take it right then. People were watching, and breaking the script was unthinkable.

He looked away and continued with his secondary goal. The doctor. As he walked, his bat scraped loudly against the hardwood floors, drawing the doctor's gaze.

The doctor closed his book and said, "I didn't know we were expecting anyone."

He smiled widely, and the doctor flinched. "You weren't."

The doctor quickly recovered from his momentary fright and stood up, his hand extended for a handshake. "I'm Dr. Iplier. A pleasure to meet you."

He put his bat in his other hand and took the offered hand. "I'm the Author."

At that moment, just as he had written, Dark walked in from one of the halls, his blue and red aura crackling slightly. "Author, what a surprise."

He dropped Dr. Iplier's hand and waved at the corpse. "Dark! Good to see you! You're looking _magnificent_. How's your mirror?"

Dr. Iplier looked confused, but Dark knew what he was talking about. This was why Dark hated him after all. That, and... other things. Things like his words and his heart and his _smile_ and his conspicuous similarity to a remnant of the past.

"What is the purpose of your visit?" Dark asked, his voice echoing into that of Damien and Celine. Oh, how he wanted to take that corpse apart and see how it worked. The _stories_ that would make. How much could he remove before the corpse stopped living? How much could he remove before it wasn't _Dark_ anymore?

"Oh, just meeting the newbie!" he replied, doing his best to hold back his fantasies. "I just _had_ to meet the resident doctor!" He grabbed the bat with both hands and tapped it gently against the floor to draw attention away from his half-truth. 

"I would appreciate it if you made an appointment in the future." Dark was visibly perturbed at his presence. Yeah, he _really_ hadn't made a good impression on the guy. Had it been too much to try and dissect him at their first meeting? Possibly. Was it worth it? Yes. The body was so _broken_. He didn't know how Dark could even _stand_, let alone try to murder anyone. 

"Oh, never mind that," he said. "How's the family?"

From outside, the war cry of the wild Jim and the surprised shouts of the King of the Squirrels could be heard. His hands _itched_ for his pen. He could do so much with two identical twins with no fear, morals, or pride. Maybe the squirrel guy would be useful. An escapee from a mental hospital? No, that was an overused cliché, and he'd already written that story.

"Wait, wait, wait," said Warfstache from the couch. "Who are you again?" He held up his knife in a position to throw. "Do I know you?"

"Well," he said, "I'd better go." He hadn't made a good impression on Warfstache either, though he didn't remember. Trying to kill the guy over and over by writing him into a story hadn't been the best idea, but it had been fascinating! The man had no concept of death anymore. He couldn't even be hurt if he didn't want to be. The story broke down of course, completely unsuitable for publication, but it was a learning experience.

He walked out the door, pausing in front of the shattered mirror yet again. He glanced back to make sure no one was watching, then snatched a fragment of the glass. Success! Experiment time.

* * *

He sat in his cabin facing the fragment of glass on the wall. It seemed to behave like the full mirror, only smaller. He could still see the Detective Attorney and the Echoing Darkness and _how did he know those names?_ There appeared to be no particularly unusual properties, though the Darkness inside the glass spilled over the edges and seemed to connect to the other shards. As he sat in the room, he shivered. He could almost feel the cold winter air outside, seeping in from under the door. But it was warm, scorching hot in the summer sun, fire seeping into his bones. The sun reflecting off the snow was so bright. But the ground was hot enough to fry eggs and bacon, snow would have burned away in a heartbeat. The frost-covered branches clinked musically in the frigid breeze. But the branches were adorned with leaves and the wind was pleasantly cool at best.

He tore his gaze away from the glass and inhaled shakily. He had not expected that. He was expecting to see the Actor and the Detective Attorney and what he had always seen when he had looked in the mirror. 

How did he know those names? 

He abruptly left the cabin and stared deep into the woods. He _really_ wanted that mirror. He w a n t e d it. He wanted the Echoing Darkness to consume his mind and feast upon his- 

What the...? What was happening to him? He sat in the summer _freezing_ sunny _snowy_ woods and tried to stop thinking. He wasn't successful.

* * *

Dark stared at the shattered mirror, his aura cracking into Damien and Celine. They had no reflection of course, but the Detective Attorney could see them, and they kept gesturing at them frantically. He would have felt guilty if he wasn't so concerned about the missing Shard. That _idiot_ had taken it without even _thinking_ of the consequences. He was tempted to leave him to his fate, but the Shard's effects probably wouldn't stop at the Author.

"This is very bad," Celine said worriedly. "Who knows what that fragment will do to him?"

"Maybe we should look for him," Damien said. 

Dark sighed. "He'll be in his cabin," he said, his voice echoing more than it usually did. "It's what he's been up to that worries me."

Celine stroked the gap in the broken glass, the hole in the Darkness. "We need to find the shard. It's pouring the Echoing Darkness into his mind."

Damien stroked his cane in a nervous tic that even death hadn't gotten rid of. "Then there's no point in delaying."

"Yes," Dark said, Damien and Celine melding back together into red and blue. "Let's go."

* * *

He sat alone with the mirror shard and kept staring. He didn't want to see anymore, but he couldn't close his eyes. He wanted to stop, but the Darkness wouldn't let him. He wasn't the Author anymore, he was just a Host to the Darkness, to the House. He managed to grab his notebook, but he couldn't write anything. He couldn't move his pencil. He didn't want to see. He didn't want to see. HE DIDN'T WANT TO SEE. 

Somehow, his hand managed to claw at one eye, obscuring line of sight and drawing blood. As his hand found purchase on the edge of the eyeball, he _pulled_, and the eye popped out. It dangled out and bounced around, hanging from the optic nerve. He tried to pull it out, but his blood-coated hand kept slipping. So instead, he grabbed the only sharp edge he could find. The mirror shard. One quick slice, and his left eye fell away, hitting the floor with a wet _slap!_ It was harder to force his right hand to block out his remaining eye, but he managed it. He kept clawing at his eye, and at last, it popped out. This slice was less precise now that he was blind, but after a few wild swings, his right eye hit the floor as well.

He collapsed to the ground, still clutching the mirror shard while laughing in delirium and relief. He was free. He was free. The Darkness didn't have him. He was free. 

There was a knock at the door, but he ignored it. He was free.

The door opened. Dark entered. 

How did he know that?

"Oh, God," Damien whispered, and Celine couldn't help but let out a sharp gasp. Dark walked towards him slowly, kneeling to get a better look at him. 

He couldn't stop laughing. 

Celine gently took the mirror shard from his hands as Damien stared at the eyes on the ground. The blood soaked into the wood in a stain that was never coming out.

He couldn't stop laughing.

"Don't worry," she said gently. "We can fix this."

His laughter took on a hysterical edge and his hands twitched. "No you can't," he gasped in the space between breaths. "No you can't." He knew it to be true. He knew it like he knew that a streak of his dark hair had turned blonde, like he knew that his eye sockets would never stop bleeding, like he knew that the Darkness still owned him.

"We'll make it better," she replied. "That's all we can do."

Dark picked him up bridal style and carried him back to the Manor, Damien and Celine still fussing over him like he was a child. He still couldn't stop laughing it wasn't funny anymore why couldn't he stop why why why?

The Jims screamed when they saw him, which made King scream. Dr. Iplier just stood there in shock and required some prompting from Dark to get to work. As anesthesia entered his veins, he could almost see the Echoing Darkness amalgamation watching him. Watching the Host.

**Author's Note:**

> The Host is my favorite.


End file.
